Year 1S OLC

Sunday, December 2, 2018

I cannot believe that we are in the last week of Year One for 2018... it has gone like a flash and your gorgeous children have grown into beautiful, capable and motivated students who have been an absolute pleasure to teach.

Some information for the last week:

Recycling bags for books
We ask the each child bring a green bag or plastic bag to school this week so they can take home their books from the year. We will send home the art folios on Thursday - be prepared for some cute photos from the start of the year!

Christmas Concert
On Wednesday at 5.30pm, the entire school will be getting together to celebrate the Year 6 Graduation, the Christmas concert performed by the Year 5's and each year group will be presenting the 2018 Making Jesus Real CARE award and the subject award for Design and Technology. This will be a brilliant night filled with glitter, Christmas cheer and some good old Christmas carols. We ask the you bring your child to the grassed area outside the hall by 5.20pm so the children can line up in their classes, ready to go into the hall. If you cannot come for any reason, please email me :)

Help with cleaning
This is our favourite time of year...where we love you all times a million! If there are any parents helpers that could come and help out cleaning our chairs and tubs this Wednesday for an hour or so, we would be extremely appreciative! We are thinking straight after drop off at 9am - 10am. If you are able to help at all, please email me or let me know in class. Thank you in advance :)

Water fun day
As mentioned in the newsletter in week 7, the children will no longer be going to the Boat ramp due to size and water safety restrictions. We will instead be having a water fun day on the last Friday at school where we participating in a variety of water fun games...including a bouncy castle! The children will also be treated to a sausage sizzle and a drink or icy pole. Please dress your children in bathers, rashie, hats, towels, another change of clothes (if needed) and come to school with sunscreen applied. We have some here and we will reapply before we go to our games. We are SO excited for our water fun day!

Saturday, November 24, 2018

This Wednesday the children will be taking part in the Keeping Safe lesson about body parts. We will be reading a story called 'Everyone has a bottom' and emphasising the fact that all parts of their body are private. I understand that the children may laugh and giggle when we talk about the anatomical names, but this is important for every child to know.

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Integrating a hands-on approach into our learning the students in Year 1S have explored mathematical concepts such as creating patterns, skip counting, shapes and positional language by incorporating a combination of physical movement and activity with our ICT skills. Odd Todd and Even Steven assisted us with identifying odd and even numbers and we even learnt a catchy tune to guide us along the way!

Our creative flair has been encouraged through our integration of HASS and Art as we created sculptures to capture the aspects of Aboriginal seasons. You can marvel at our imagination and innovative ideas by checking out our awesome classroom display!

The student’s interest in Anh Do novels was my inspiration for art this month as we discussed his different approach to painting. The students have drawn self-portraits in which they will paint this week with varying tools…not a paintbrush in sight! Should prove for an interesting lesson and I am looking forward to seeing what they can produce!!

I would like to take this opportunity to say an enormous thank you to Mrs Sheborne, Ms Kent and the amazing students and families in Year 1S. Thank you for welcoming me into your classroom and allowing me the privilege of becoming part of your learning journey! I hope I have made half the impact on you as you have all made on me.

Monday, November 19, 2018

Over the last few weeks of school, we will be consolidating the first 100 (and next 100 if your child is up to it) sight words. We have noticed that many children are not applying these learnt sight words in their writing correctly. We will be consolidating the sight word program from week 7 onwards and we will be sending home a copy of the words your child is not using correctly in their writing or has not retained.

We would encourage that you practise writing these in sentences over the holidays so your child can be best prepared to apply them into their writing.

Next year, depending on the number of words your child has retained, in Year Two, they may be starting on a different level of sight words. This is to ensure they are spelling the most common sight words correctly in context, so they can have continued success in their reading and writing.

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

We were lucky enough to have the lovely Breeanna from Bunnings, Busselton to come and visit us today to make some wonderful Christmas craft for our end of year gift. The children absolutely loved piecing their gift together like a puzzle and attaching the various parts with the wood glue. It was lovely to see so many of the Year Ones using their team work skills to help one another balance their objects to piece their craft together. Job well done!

Last Friday we were lucky enough to have so many parent helpers to assist us with constructing our Castles during Art. The children created cones with decorative paper to top their turrets, used scissors to cut 'battlement' edges into their castles, attached materials with PVA, masking tape and created drawbridges from string and cardboard. Some interesting features on our castles included a range of different sized towers, dungeons, portcullises, turrets and one castle even had a moat filled with pretend water. It was fantastic to see the Year Ones put their creative hats on to construct their own unique and inventive structures.

Thank you to all Year One parents for helping your children gather and collect various recycled materials from home. We had so many toilet rolls, shoeboxes, containers and other items that we put to good use. A big thanks to our wonderful parent helpers from Year 1S and Year 1P for making this activity possible.

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

In Science we have been learning about how everyday materials can be changed in a variety of ways. We have explored that materials can be warmed, cooled, bent, stretched and twisted.

We have been planning our STEM project of making a chair for Baby Bear as Goldilocks broke his last one! We have been asked to design a new chair made only with newspaper and sticky tape.

We needed to work out:
- How we can change newspaper into the shape of a chair
- What actions we need to take to change the shape of the paper eg. roll, cut, fold, scrunch
- How the chair can hold the weight of a small bear.

The children loved working in teams of three to create their design.

This Friday we will be creating our chairs so we are asking for any newspaper that you have to be brought in for our creations!